Awkwardparticle

The ultimate goal is having no downtime. Ballast gives you that result. The cost of downtime far larger than wasting extra space for ballast.

I am all for a good extraction shooter. I hope they can pull it off.

This is a huge factor. Rural people pay all of their taxes but from their perspective, they are getting nothing back. There is no point in building a huge new Hospital 50 miles from any settlement, nobody can use it and it will be a complete waste. Why would they ever vote for politicians that plan on spending taxes to fund services, when another group is saying they will cut taxes?